This document facilitate the preparation of a risk communication and community engagement strategy for vaccination against COVID-19. Its goal is to help to strengthen the communication and planning capacities of the ministries or secretariats of health and other agencies in charge of communicating ...about new COVID-19 vaccines in the Americas.
Available in English, Spanish and Portuguese
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31 March 2021
This article is part of a series of explainers on vaccine development and distribution. Learn more about vaccines – from how they work and how they’re made to ensuring safety and equitable access – in WHO’s Vaccines Explained series.
Countries around the world are rolling ou...t COVID-19 vaccines, and a key topic of interest is their safety. Vaccine safety is one of WHO’s highest priorities, and we’re working closely with national authorities to develop and implement standards to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.
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29 Dec 2021. Comprehensive slideset updated regularly to include the latest data and guidance on best practices for COVID-19 diagnosis and prevention of COVID-19 transmission.
26 March 2021 Slideset updated regularly to include the latest data on the evolution and duration of COVID-19 symptoms and prevalence and duration of natural immunity.
The procurement of essential medicines and other health products is a critical function in support of the effective discharge of WHO’s mandate, and WHO values the importance of the quality of essential medicines and health products that are supplied to countries. The first World Health Assembly in... 1948 recognized the need to establish a procurement service at WHO, and recommended setting up an office “to give advice on the procurement of essential drugs, biological products and other medical supplies”.
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This poster is intended for health workers and other personnel on the safety and mitigation measures that need to be adhered to when dealing with medical oxygen. Medical oxygen, either in liquid or gas form, is an oxidizing agent that can result in a fire or explosion if not handled properly.
Background paper 10
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
May 2021
A public health emergency operation center (PHEOC) serves as a hub for better coordinating the preparation, response, and recovery for public health emergencies. A functional PHEOC is critical for the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005). The Framework for a Public Healt...h Emergency Operations Centre provides high-level guidance for establishing or strengthening a PHEOC. To establish and/or strengthen a PHEOC, it is vital for Member States to align with standardized policies, guidelines, and tools.
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Interim guidanceAnnex to: Policy considerations for implementing a risk-based approach to international travel in the context of COVID-19, 2 July 2021
The purpose of this document is to offer guidance to Member States on quarantine measures for individuals in the context of COVID-19. It is intended for those responsible for establishing local or national policy for quarantine of individuals, and adherence to infection prevention and control measur...es.
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Many African countries were amongst the most rapid to respond to the emerging threat of COVID-19, implementing large-scale interventions at very early stages of their epidemic. As demonstrated in this document using very simple models, this rapid mobilization and timeliness of implementing control m...easures is likely to be an important determinant of their success. Indeed, as these measures were relaxed, subsequent waves of disease have been observed in many countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where such waves have severely impacted the health system by straining the supply of oxygen and ICU beds and inflicting a heavy toll on healthcare workers, often necessitating the re-imposition of control measures.
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Pharmaceutical regulators are at the forefront of ensuring that only safe and effective medicines are authorized and available in the market. This document builds on the recommendations in the above publication and has been prepared to specifically assist national medicines regulatory authorities to... understand the nature and extent of oxytocin quality issues and to provide key technical information and quality requirements for oxytocin products in dossier assessments. Furthermore, this document also presents recommendations on other regulatory actions needed to ensure that only quality-assured oxytocin products are authorized and made available to women.
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Soil-transmitted helminths are a group of intestinal worms that include Ascaris lumbricoides (giant roundworm), Trichuris trichiura (whipworm), and Ancylostoma spp. (A. duodenale, A. ceylanicum) and Necator americanus (hookworms). Despite the clear biological differences among the different species,... their transmission is characterized by the same sequence of events: (i) infected individuals excrete worm eggs through their stool in soil; (ii) under optimal conditions of moisture and temperature the excreted eggs develop into infectious stages; and (iii) finally, infection occurs through oral uptake (Ascaris, Ancylostoma and Trichuris) or skin penetration (Ancylostoma and Necator) of these infectious stages (embryonated eggs and third stage larvae) that reside in the soil and/or in the environment (referring to their common name).
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Enabling young children to achieve their full developmental potential is a human right and an essential requisite for sustainable development. Given the critical importance of enabling children to make the best start in life, the health sector, among other sectors, has an important role and responsi...bility to support nurturing care for early childhood development. This guideline provides direction for strengthening policies and programmes to better address early childhood development.
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Guide to national implementation of the Shanghai Declaration describes policy orientations and approaches that can unlock the transformative potential of health promotion for sustainable development. This guide was developed to support country level implementation of the commitments and recommendati...ons in the Shanghai Declaration.
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Modern healthcare has given rise to extremely complex and multifaceted ethical dilemmas. All too often physicians are unprepared to manage these competently. This publication is specifically structured to reinforce and strengthen the ethical mindset and prac...tice of physicians and provide tools to find ethical solutions to these dilemmas. It is not a list of “rights and wrongs” but an attempt to sensitise the conscience of the physician, which is the basis for all sound and ethical decision-making. To this end, you will find several case studies in the book, which are intended to foster individual ethical reflection as well as discussion within team settings.
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